Pie for Breakfast to offer slice of comfort

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette First the bad news. Opening day for Trevett and Sarah Hooper’s highly anticipated Pie for Breakfast restaurant in North Oakland has been pushed back another couple of weeks, due to construction issues. Now the good news. When it does finally open for business by the end of May, Mr. Hooper says it will feature the kind of meals Pittsburgh’s burgeoning restaurant scene has yet to capitalize on: high-quality, old-fashioned comfort food, crafted with local ingredients.

Think protein-rich omelets featuring locally sourced goose eggs and stuffed with wild veggies such as nettles and ramps; thick slices of shoulder bacon and plump sausage links made by the chef’s Good Faith Restaurant Group’s in-house butchers, and down-home pies like mom would have made, had she had more time.

“What we’re doing is timeless,” said Mr. Hooper of the restaurant on North Craig Street in North Oakland, next door to Legume and Butterjoint. It’s also totally new territory for the chef, who has built his reputation over the past decade for his commitment to sustainability and artfully prepared dishes.

The idea for the restaurant came in 2016, when the space next to Butterjoint became available. It was financed in part by crowdsourcing. Contributors would buy a “piece of the pie,” or POP, in the form of a gift certificate that would increase in value 10 percent per year for five years.

In contrast to the fine dining food served at Legume (it was the only restaurant in the region selected as a semifinalist in the 2018 James Beard Awards Outstanding Restaurant category), the 50-seat Pie for Breakfast will offer casual, affordable meals not just for breakfast, as the name implies, but also lunch and dinner.

Some of the menu was previewed at a breakfast-fordinner pop-up Wednesday night at Whitfield at the Ace Hotel Pittsburgh in East Liberty. The event was part of the Whitfield’s Sharing Knives series, a bimonthly collaborative dinner series that pairs guest chefs from Pittsburgh and beyond with chef Bethany Zozula.

Pancakes, breakfast meats, two types of sausage with biscuits and a tangy dandelion salad were served family style. There also were a bloody mary bar and an omelet station staffed by Mr. Hopper and Ms. Zozula. A dessert table included lemon rosewater poppy seed cookies, chocolate mousse pie, light-as-air meringues studded with chocolate chips, and pastry chef Robin Cumpston’s specialty, champagne vinegar pie.

“I know, the name totally turns people off,” she conceded with a laugh. But it’s tart apple-like flavor, she said, is proving to be a hit with customers.

Justin Lewis, who worked at Legume for five years after it opened in 2007 and most recently cooked at Dinette, will serve as chef de cuisine. While the food will look simple on its face, he said, it will feature the same careful sourcing and meticulous preparation that distinguish Mr. Hooper’s two other restaurants.

“If you eat at Pie, there will be some soul and experience behind it,” he said.

When it comes to the restaurant’s homemade pies, bread puddings, cookies and other desserts, the twist will be that there is no twist.

“We’re bringing back the basics,” says Ms. Cumpston, who most recently was at La Gourmandine and also worked at Palazzo 1837 Ristorante in Washington, Pa.

Fillings will be seasonal, and many of the recipes have Shaker and Amish roots.

“It’s comfort food from years gone by, only made with the best ingredients” available in Western Pennsylvania, said pastry chef Emily Bourdon.

Guests can expect to pay about $10 for breakfast, $14 for lunch, and there will be options to get in and out at dinner for $15, along with other ways to spend more money, says Mr. Hooper.

Pie for Breakfast will offer breakfast seven days a week and lunch and dinner service Monday through Saturday. It will serve brunch on Sunday.

More info: pieforbreakfastpittsburgh.com.